About Us

The Collared Scholar was founded in 2007 by Meagan Karnes. Ms. Karnes was the founder and President of Fur-Crazy Pet Care, one of San Diego's largest and most well known pet care companies. Ms. Karnes founded the business after her encounters with sub par service providers in the industry. With a bachelor's degree in biochemisty and a Master's Degree in Business Administration, Ms. Karnes found herself working long hours in the San Diego Biotech field. Her dog, Koby, an American Pit Bull Terrier was suffering. Ms. Karnes and her husband decided to hire a caretaker for their beloved pet. However, on the second day with his pet sitter, Koby was taken to an unfenced park for some playtime and, while the sitter turned her attention away from the dog, he got spooked and ran away. Koby was gone for 7 days before Ms. Karnes and her husband found him in an Animal Control facility, frightened and traumatized.

After her experience with Koby, Ms. Karnes decided to leave the biotech world and pursue a career with animals so that she could rehabilitate her dog, as he had developed people and animal aggression while he was missing. Thus was born Fur-Crazy Pet Care, a pet care company that quickly grew to be the largest in San Diego with a client base of over 800.

Fur-Crazy Pet Care was sold in 2007 after experiencing exponential growth since inception. While still involved with Fur-Crazy Pet Care, Ms. Karnes developed a dog training program, tackling behavioral issues primarily in rescued dogs. She studied under many expert behaviorists and put in countless hours attending seminars and classes to further her education. After realizing there were many sub par dog trainers in the field, she decided to put into motion a program to train and certify dog trainers which she began to implement prior to Fur-Crazy's sale. After selling Fur-Crazy Pet Care, she retained her rights to the training portion of the business and so was born The Collared Scholar.

The Collared Scholar is a full service dog training academy that focuses on behavior modification and training for urban living. Ms. Karnes, through her experiences with her own dog, has developed a specialization in bully breeds with emphasis on anti-aggression training and behavior modification. She has also worked extensively with deaf dogs and dogs with other disabilities. She has also partnered with several California based dog training companies to offer protection and working dog services.

The company now services all of San Diego County. They offer such services as Puppy Classes, Basic Obedience, Advanced Obedience, Agility, and Anti-Aggression Training. The company also offers a rescue and rehabilitation program to help save dogs in need.

Check Out Our Partners:

Tim Welch, Redefined Dog Training, Long Beach CA - Tim offers his assistance with severe aggression cases as well as personal and property protection services. He is our resident child aggression expert. Tim has studied under master trainers in the United States and abroad in France, Germany and Belgium.

Ron and Debbie Skinner, Paws N Claws, Aguanga CA - This husband and wife team assist us regularly in training dogs for personal and property protection as well as for extreme dog sports such as French Ringsport, Schutzhund and Mondio Ring. Ron has been a certified French Ring Decoy, MondioRing Decoy, Certified NAPD Decoy and accomplished training decoy and Debbie has raised and titled countless dogs.